Betaal (Netflix India) S01: B

This is a by the book B series that would become a cult type of series in the future. The horror genre has given us a lot of cult classics in the past like the Evil Dead franchise, including the Starz series Ash vs Evil Dead. They usually have an over the top story line, followed by cheap visual effects, but that somehow they all work together making it a guilty pleasure, that you end up loving.

Betaal follows a group of military men that are given the task of helping a company that wants to reopen a tunnel, and the villagers strongly disagree because they believe that is cursed. When they finally open it the horror begins for this group. And not even the villagers would be able to help them. They let loose a group of zombie British redcoats that were trapped inside the tunnel. In order to defeat them they would have to know who or what is behind those zombies.

One of the creator worked on Ghoul also for Netflix. and this started as a web series project that the streaming giant bought. And here is where I stayed speechless. Web series really?

From the very first shot this seems unbelievable. The photography is amazing and it proves that a great cinematography work can do for you more than half the job, in terms of setting you in the world and story you want to tell. It looks like a big budget production, from those first images you would never guess that it was meant for web. Unfortunately for some producers and directors, having a good director of photography is not that important, and you can make the audiences feel what you want them to feel not only with the story, the dialogues, the music, but also de photography. I'm sure that it also helped the fact that place where this series was shot is beautiful, so you just need some mist and lighting tricks to make it look scary and mysterious.

A great trick, when you don't have enough resources is to hide your big element from the audiences, with sound techniques, cinematography and a good editing job. Here they use this trick wisely and we don't really see the threat that they have to fight until the third (out of four) episode. And here is were we realize that it is not a big production.

The make up design looks cheap and yes it diminishes a little bit the job done so far. But other series and movies of the genre also have cheap make up and it is part of their charm.I would have cut half the close ups they ended up showing after the third episode. But I decided to play along and keep enjoying the series, instead of focusing on how ridiculous the zombies looked.

Of course if you are not into the genre, you have to stay as far away as possible from this, you will surely going to hate it. But if you like those classics, you might find a new favorite to add to your collection. And another big plus is that is just four episodes long, so we have a good pace in the story, that keeps the suspense going and some good scares.

Betaal closed very few door in this first season, it served like an introduction to the world they wanted to set us up in. By the season finale they open some new and bigger doors that would raise the stakes for a second one. That is of course if it gets renewed and also if it's meant to be a series and not a miniseries like Ghoul. Also is about time that we have a big hit from Netflix India, since they have such an important film industry.